“I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me – shapes and ideas so near to me – so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn’t occurred to me to put them down.”

I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at – not copy it.

Sun-bleached bones were most wonderful against the blue – that blue that will always be there as it is now after all man’s destruction is finished.

I often lay on that bench looking up into the tree, past the trunk and up into the branches. It was particularly fine at night with the stars above the tree.

Marks on paper are free – free speech – press – pictures all go together I suppose.

It was all so far away – there was quiet and an untouched feel to the country and I could work as I pleased.

The days you work are the best days.

I believe I would rather have Stieglitz like something – anything I had done – than anyone else I know.

I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.

One can not be an American by going about saying that one is an American. It is necessary to feel America, like America, love America and then work.

I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life – and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.

One can’t paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt.

Anyone who doesn’t feel the crosses simply doesn’t get that country.

I don’t very much enjoy looking at paintings in general. I know too much about them. I take them apart.

You get whatever accomplishment you are willing to declare.

I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.

Singing has always seemed to me the most perfect means of expression. It is so spontaneous. And after singing, I think the violin. Since I cannot sing, I paint.